Grains of Sand, and the Feathers of a Crow
by DeusPascitCorvos
Summary: Madoka knows what labyrinths should look like: psychedelic, oppressive, their creator's trauma bursting free in every fractal wall and misshapen inhabitant. So why has her hunt taken her into the desert, of all places?


A vast expanse of sand stretched away on all sides, so perfectly flat that even the archer's supernaturally keen eyes couldn't find features against the horizon. Only the sky revealed this world's true nature, great swirls of dusty oranges and purples and blacks that swept together, conjoined, and split apart in an eternal dance, like oil on water.

Madoka scanned her surroundings warily and advanced, keeping her bowstring taut. Even one slip and the monstrosities that surely inhabited this place would be upon her; in a witch's labyrinth, the feeling of safety is the surest sign you're in danger.

A thought struck her and she fired straight into the sand at her feet, suddenly realising that the familiars might be _buried. _When nothing screamed, cried, laughed or gargled curses from an inhuman throat she knelt warily and let her bow vanish, planting one hand in the sand. No tremors or movement that she could feel, but…

'There's nothing there,' said a voice from her left.

Madoka sprang back, frills and petticoats flaring around her. In a moment she was three paces behind the speaker, rosewood bow in her ends. Energy hummed reassuringly against her fingertips, the arrow aimed at—

'You'd be able to sense them, otherwise,' the owner of the voice continued blithely, either uncaring or unaware that pink death was a twitch of a finger away from searing through her heart.

Stare.

A girl. She had long raven hair and a lean, agile physique, accentuated by a slim white costume and black stockings—the antithesis of Madoka's own poufy apparel. And wings. Giant black wings, each easily the size of the girl herself, with the colour of a starless sky and the consistency of crows' feathers.

Lavender eyes met hers, observing. Deceptive eyes, Madoka felt in her heart. A cool and calm surface belying the arrogant blue flames that burned within.

'Are you here to hunt the witch?' the girl asked.

'Um, yes. Sorry! But I don't want to get in your way, so…'

'It's quite all right. I don't think I could face it on my own.'

'Oh. Good.' A thought came to her as she surveyed the desert wastes. 'If you know about it, does that mean you know where it is? All I can see is sand.'

The winged girl nodded decisively. 'We need to go further in.'

'Right. Um, I'm Kaname Madoka. Since we're working together, can you tell me your name?'

But her newfound ally set off across the sands without a word and the command was as sure as if she'd grabbed Madoka by the collar. Trailing along behind her, Madoka had just about resigned herself to ignorance when a voice floated back.

'Homura will suffice.'

They travelled together for an immeasurable length of time, apparent to Madoka only by the rhythm of their footsteps. She'd long since lost count, of course, mesmerised by the way Homura's wings flowed with her movement, shifting and fluttering with every step. Were they real or simply decorative? She'd seen Puella Magi costumes adorned with frills and dresses, even an extra lock of hair, so that was one possible explanation. Alternatively... what kind of wish would give you wings?

_And why didn't __**I**__ make it?_ Madoka groused to herself. Sure, her wish had been for a good cause but—wings!

So distracted was she that when Homura next spoke Madoka squealed and jumped straight into the air… and had to parachute back down again using her skirt because when a magical girl jumps, she _jumps._

'We're here.'

Ahead of them was an incongruous sight. A single chair. Not a throne, not a pew, nor some other majestic piece of phantasmagoria. Just a small, plastic school chair, sitting below an alien sky in the middle of an endless desert.

Madoka had an arrow through it in a heartbeat. The chair flew backwards, tumbling with its back disintegrated and its legs bent, leaking acrid smoke into the airless sky. No grief seed was apparent. She watched it like a hawk, another arrow already nocked, heat haze rippling around her bow so that there appeared to be three, five arrows at any one time. But it really did seem to be… just a chair.

The rush of blood in her head dribbled back to where it belonged and Madoka slowly realised that her companion had done nothing save regard her with something that might have been amusement.

'It isn't there either, Madoka.'

'Oh. Well, it might have been!' she defended herself hotly, keeping her bow steady. 'Is it hiding, then?'

Homura sighed. 'That doesn't seem likely—it's always been in plain view before. But the desert is strange and deceptive. You might not know it when you see it.'

Madoka shivered a little, the motion hidden under the layers of her dress. She … really didn't want to see something that this imperturbable, winged girl thought of as strange.

'Wait, so you've hunted it before?'

Homura made a tiny motion in lieu of actual body language, which Madoka interpreted as a nod. 'A few times, now. And learned a little.'

'What sort of things did you learn?'

'It's old. So old that even its familiars have crumbled.' There was no emotion in her tone, but Madoka could swear Homura seemed almost pitying. 'It's all alone here.'

'No buried monsters?'

'No buried monsters.'

'Well. That's good, at least. But I'm still kind of worried—you said we might not be able to recognise it on sight, so doesn't that mean it'll suddenly ambush us?'

'I don't think so,' Homura said quietly. 'I won't let you be in danger, I promise.'

A pink flush slowly spread out from Madoka's cheeks, tinting her skin to match her outfit. Despite only knowing this girl for—well, who knows but not very long—Homura seemed to think of her as a friend. It was nice. It gave her warmth. Or maybe that was the adrenaline sending blood to her head.

'So what do we do now?' she asked tentatively.

'We wait.'

'Un.' Madoka nodded. 'In that case… would you mind telling me a little about yourself, Homura-chan?'

For the first time, Homura turned to look at her, lips turning up with the faintest wistfulness.

'Why would you want to know such things?'

Mouth opening and closing, Madoka searched for some cool reason, or at least a better way to say it. Nothing came, so she settled for, 'I feel like I should be close to you. It's silly but, um, I'd like to be your friend. If you'll have me.'

The winged girl seemed unsurprised by her words, and neither scorned nor dismissed them.

'I can tell you a few things, I suppose. Let's see…'

As she mused, Homura picked the battered chair up and set it straight again, brushing the sand off the seat and back. She didn't offer the chair to Madoka but sat herself, resting her hands demurely in her lap.

'...I was born without parents, having been found in a pram on the doorstop of a Catholic orphanage. I know very little about the family I came from; certainly not who gave birth to me or why they gave me up; I know that they were rich, though, because the orphanage would frequently receive very generous donations earmarked to the age group I was in at the time.'

'They must have cared, then,' Madoka offered, 'if they looked after you that closely. Although it does sound sad… I don't know what I'd do without Mama and Papa.'

'A lot of the orphans felt the same,' Homura agreed, 'and were either jealous or enamoured of me for that. They almost treated me like a princess; though it was my parents rather than myself they were trying to impress. I… played up to it, wondering who my parents were, sure that they would take me back once I proved that I was worthy of them. Of course, they didn't, and when I was old enough to trace the donations I was firmly informed that they wanted no such contact between us.'

Madoka's heart wrenched at the thought but Homura seemed entirely unaffected by the story she was telling. Almost as if she were talking about someone else, or an old woman reminiscing over the follies of her childhood.

'I had a congenital heart disorder, you see, of the sort that is tested for in infancy. Presumably they didn't want to invest their emotions in a girl who was sure to die before she could reach adulthood.' Seeing the look on Madoka's face, she says quickly, 'It wasn't that bad. They paid for my care, and I was eventually able to receive an experimental surgery that restored me to something approaching health. I went back to school, and…'

She fell silent.

After two minutes (one hundred and twenty elephants), Madoka fidgeted, breaking the spell, and Homura continued.

'Well. Many things happened. I became aware of witches, and then the magical girls who fought against them. And I met someone… a girl I loved very much.'

Madoka's mouth hung open. 'You … loved another girl?!' she squeaked.

'Not like that. Perhaps. It's hard to say, though I know I've never felt the same way about anyone before or since.'

The idea of such a legacy depressed Madoka, imagining the shadow that this girl must have cast over Homura's life. And, selfishly, she was upset to realise that she would never be closer to her new friend than that figure from long ago; she would fade beneath the weight of that shadow just like all the rest.

'What happened to her?' she asked hesitantly.

'Many things, as I said. It is… complicated, and difficult to recall now.'

'But you'll never forget her,' Madoka said. It wasn't a question. The echoes of that girl were visible in Homura's eyes and voice; they resonated in every word she spoke.

'No. I'll fight for her until the universe ends.'

'Doesn't that mean you'll never fight for yourself, though?'

Lavender eyes turned inwards, contemplating. 'The two are the same thing,' Homura stated eventually, and that was obviously the end of it.

The pair stood there in silence. There was no wind, and despite being a desert this place was neither hot enough to make Madoka sweat under layers of magical cloth nor cool enough to make those layers necessary.

Eventually there was no avoiding it.

'Homura?'

'Yes?'

'Are you the witch?'

Madoka's bow remained at her side as she regarded the winged girl thoughtfully.

'What makes you ask?' the girl replied eventually.

Madoka smiled.

'You told me, remember? That the witch was very old, and very lonely. When you talked about yourself… you made it sound like it all happened so long ago.'

'It did,' said Homura. 'A lifetime ago.'

'And you've been waiting for her ever since.'

'Until the universe ends.'

The bow was tossed away without a second thought, vanishing in a pink flash like a reverse lightning strike, back up into the sky.

'Will you show me?' Madoka asked her.

Without a word, Homura extended her wings. Like a bird's, they unfolded up and out. But they kept growing, wider and wider, raven feathers giving way to the void of space wherein all things flared and died. A spiral galaxy hung under Homura's ear. A nebula swirled around the fingertips of her left hand, while here and there supernova flashed and were gone.

The wings spread further, growing until they dwarfed the girl from whose back they sprang. Merging with the sand and sky and the far-off horizon, even creeping under Madoka's feet, until the two of them were surrounded by twinkling darkness and the desert was nowhere to be seen.

Homura folded her hands in her lap, looking up at her from the old, worn chair that had once adorned a Mitakiharan classroom and now floated in the stars.

On impulse, Madoka reached out, cupping a pinprick of light in her fingers. 'It's beautiful,' she breathed.

'Is it? But you should careful with that. Worlds are fragile.'

'What? Are these… real?'

'Perhaps. Perhaps not. There's no way to tell, so you may as well be careful.'

'Oh,' Madoka said forlornly, and opened her hands to let dark matter whisk her star away.

'This is the true fate of a magical girl. To be at peace with your despair, to accept it without being controlled by it. A metastable state too delicate to be found by any human, let alone the girls touched by Kyubey, irrational creatures that they are.'

Madoka let the slight go. 'So, I could be like this one day?'

'No. Madoka is the polar opposite, an entirely different sort of existence. And one far more beautiful.'

'Um. Thank you.' Honestly, she was totally lost. But there was something more important to be discussed. 'I… don't mean to sound forward, or like I'm assuming things or… oh…'

She broke off and started again.

'If we're both here, does that make me… I'm the girl you were talking about, aren't I?'

'You are,' Homura confirmed, and was there the faintest tremble in her voice? 'You are Kaname Madoka. My very best friend.'

The only thing scarier than being overshadowed by someone else was being overshadowed by _yourself_, but the words warmed her anyway. 'I'm sorry, though,' she said. 'I'm afraid I… can't seem to remember you. I don't even remember how I came here,' she added suddenly, and knew it to be true.

'I know.' This time there was no hiding it—the girl in front of her was on the trembling cusp of tears. 'I-I know. B-b-but it's okay. I remember you. I remember you, Madoka. I'll always remember. For you. All you have to do is stay. I'll tell you all the cycles. All the s-s-stories. I saw so many b-b-beautiful things…'

'I can't.' The words came out of her mouth of their own volition. They, also, were true. She knew it, though she couldn't say how.

'No. No. Please, Madoka.' Tears ran down the other's cheeks, rivulets of stardust spilling from her eyes. 'Please don't go.'

'I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. But it's like I told you before—I can't exist anywhere now. Not until the universe ends. I'll see you then, Homura, I will, I promise.' The words were hers, and not hers, and they flew thick and fast. But they wouldn't console the sobbing girl in front of her, and Madoka felt her heart break as it did every time. All she could do was hold her.

'BUT THE UNIVERSE WON'T END!' Homura screamed as Madoka reached out, startling her back. She chuckled, a hoarse, manic giggle from a throat still thick with tears and mucus. 'It worked, Madoka! The Incubator's plan worked! You saved the world! You saved the universe! IT'LL NEVER FUCKING END! NEVER! NEV—'

* * *

><p>A vast expanse of sand stretched away on all sides, so perfectly flat that even the archer's supernaturally keen eyes couldn't find features against the horizon. Only the sky revealed this world's true nature, great swirls of dusty oranges and purples and blacks that swept together, conjoined, and split apart in an eternal dance, like oil on water.<p>

Madoka scanned her surroundings warily and advanced, keeping her bowstring taut.

* * *

><p>Homura's throat was sore, but she wiped her eyes and set her chair firmly in the sand.<p>

Her wings extended, plain old things, made from the feathers of crows, ravens and vultures. Just another scavenger, waiting for the world to die.

They propelled her into the sky.

She had a guest to take care of.

FIN

* * *

><p>AN: No, it's not 'In the Shadows of Utopia'. Sorry! I wrote this a couple of years ago and found it on my hard drive quite recently, so here you go.


End file.
